English
During his trial for the gruesome murder of young girl Vanja Gjorcevska, political aggitator Ljupco Palevski said that he possesses 200,000 recorded phone conversations that can reveal “the filth of this political elite”.
Palevski, once a published and insider of the SDSM party turned supporter of radical political causes, is suspected of orchestrating the kidnapping and murder of the 14 year old girl who he apparently wanted to ransom, and an elderly man. He had his first testimony in court this week, during which he denied the allegations, but made the veiled threat regarding the recordings.
If true, it’s likely that Palevski was part of the hugely disruptive wiretapping scandal of 2015, when former intelligence chief Zoran Verusevski was accused of unlawfully obtaining and editing a large cache of wiretaps of Macedonia’s political leaders that were used to create a political crisis, bring down the VMRO-DPMNE government and impose a name change on Macedonia. In an editorial, journalist Branko Geroski notes that Palevski once publisahed one of his own conversations on Youtube.
I’m convinced that the psychopath Palevski had strong logistical support from Interior Ministry structures and from the secret police, whose protege he is. He had help to cover up his links to the crime, and also to flee the country, said Geroski.
The cache of wiretaps were primarily used by then SDSM leader Zoran Zaev, but it is widely believed that they were sold on the black market – one cache was released by an Albanian activist in the US and several leaks on Youtube were attributed to Palevski. Geroski says that he testified before state prosecutors that his conversation leaked by Palevski is authentic, and was given to Palevski by Zoran Zaev, but that the SPO unit prosecutors refused to act on this.
